The leaders in both parties in Congress continue thinking somehow magically that our government’s budget will balance itself. They seem to make little effort to make budget cuts. When a group of Congressmen assert they want to make cuts, they are branded heartless, brainless haters. Here is one cut that can easily be made, hurting no one except the government employees performing a useless and duplicative job. Let us first define the magnitude of the challenge. The Congressional Budget office released info for the coming years. The budget deficit for the fiscal year 2024 is $1.6 billion. It will go up to $1.8 billion in 2025 before returning to $1.6 billion by 2027. Then the budget deficit is projected to explode to $2.6 billion in 2034. These budgets are a growing percentage of our GDP as it goes from 5.6% to 6.1% to 2034. Looking at it differently, our national debt will equal our national GDP by 2024 and become 116% pf GDP by 2034. That is if our elected leaders do nothing. At the current time, they are doing nothing. One agency that can be cut right now is obvious to me with no one being harmed. The $31.8 million a year it spends… Read More

You have probably seen a cop show where there is a company owned by an entity that is owned by another entity to hide the real owners. A perfect example of someone using what can be referred to as “shell companies” is Hunter Biden having more than 20 of them. Congress wants to stop these activities which are believed to be sheltering illegal activities. Their solution? A proposal with such overkill it is akin to killing a mosquito with a bazooka. The Corporate Transparency Act passed in 2021 with bipartisan support. It put enforcement of this in the hands of a U.S. Treasury bureau named the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN). According to Director Andrea Gacki, their website states “This final rule is a significant step forward in our efforts to protect our financial system and curb illicit activities.” “BOI (Beneficial Ownership Information) can provide essential information to law enforcement, intelligence, and national security professionals as they work to protect the United States from bad actors who exploit anonymous shell companies to engage in money laundering, corruption, sanctions and tax evasion, drug trafficking, fraud, and a host… Read More

The world has been directing negative comments against lawyers for at least five hundred years. Law schools push out too many people with degrees that go on to lay waste to our economy. Ambulance chasers have given way to the mass marketers arranging financial mayhem. Our government hires throngs of attorneys to attack our businesses and stifle our livelihoods. They end up engaging against legal counsel at other governmental entities in death-match battles financed by our taxes. This has accelerated into an egregious attack on our political system. The visceral hatred of Donald Trump has redefined “political positioning.” Having lived through both RDS (Reagan Derangement Syndrome) and BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), the TDS we are experiencing eclipses the previous ones in such a manner to resemble zombies on speed due to their vengefulness. They were willing to threaten our political system while he was President and have been working to destroy our court system ever since. If you don’t think these actions have a destructive effect permanently, you are probably experiencing TDS yourself where anything is justified to rid of us of the menacing “Orange… Read More

While conceiving this column I came upon an observation about the difference between the Biden and Trump presidencies. Trump’s administration was chaos, but our lives were normal. Biden’s administration is normal, but everything else is in chaos. When speaking about President Biden, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” That statement made in January 2014 was long before Biden ran as an experienced individual who then became President overseeing our country’s foreign policy. Matters have gotten even worse since he ascended to his current position. There are many decisions Biden has made along with both his feeble Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. There are so many well-known decisions that have gone sideways and then there are others. For example, there is the teams’ disastrous decisions regarding Brazil — the most significant country in South America. Biden did not like the positions of Jair Bolsonaro who was a staunch supporter of the United States and our allies. Because Bolsonaro… Read More

This column addresses the issue of Claudine Gay, the now-former president of Harvard, but is not really about her. This is about how we who are not on the Left are addressed by those on the Left. And why they are constantly attacking, and their lack of tolerance as opposed to discussing. Many of you may have experienced this, but not necessarily the level of rhetoric frequently experienced by this column’s author. As regular readers know I prioritize reading opinions from the other side of the political spectrum. My belief is that seeking out opposing thoughts is of the utmost importance. A column by a Rabbi in a prominent Jewish publication looked interesting, so I started reading. The column starts: In a few years, no one will remember ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay’s plagiarism kerfuffle. All we’ll remember is that that she angered some rich pro-Israel donors, as well as opportunistic activists and politicians, and they got her fired. That should be chilling. Finding that vexing I decided to locate the author and ask some questions. I wrote an email: Working on a column on this subject. Have a couple… Read More

Life-threatening’ storm to slam Southern California beginning Sunday, last for days Monster storm bears down on California: The danger zones, the forecast, the warnings Sunday’s ‘Pineapple Express’ expected to wallop Southern California Forecasters say a second storm fueled by an atmospheric river will hit California next week, roughly doubling the amount of rain falling Thursday on Los Angeles and surrounding areas. These are some of the headlines that we have been faced with recently regarding what is considered by most people in the world to be a normal part of life, but a strange phenomenon to people in Southern California – weather. We are so accustomed to “75 degrees and sunny” that when we actually must drive in rain, it is a psychological experience for many. It seems that the press these days have nothing better to do than scare people. I have been noticing this development recently that has followed on the heels of the mass evacuations occurring in areas where there were hurricanes. I have written previously about the fear tactics… Read More

Our daily newspaper — the failing SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE (“the U-T”) — just closed down a major function for a newspaper — the online comments from readers of the paper.

Ostensibly, it was a cost-cutting decision. But they lie.

They not only stopped posting comments. The paper ERASED the HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of carefully screened comments from ALL U-T articles available online dating back decades!

They KNEW what they were doing. The paper erased some of San Diego’s history for no economic reason.

Not PRINTING letters to the editor would be an understandable business decision. But it costs the paper NOTHING to allow reader comments online. A robust comments section honoring the intent of the First Amendment could continue — if the paper actually FAVORED free speech. They don’t.

The paper’s editors have never liked reader comments, because such comments are OVERWHELMINGLY critical of the paper. Articulate critics (yes, I’m one) take the U-T to the woodshed for a whippin’ every time they run their woke, biased screeds masquerading as… Read More

The Wall Street Journal ran a column on December 4th entitled “Who Got a Lot Richer During the Pandemic,” https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/savings/who-got-a-lot-richer-and-who-didnt-during-the-pandemic-8dd238ab . I read it with great interest and found a gaping hole in the analysis. The column starts by telling us the pandemic made Americans richer which many might think counterintuitive to reality. After all, 2020 saw many businesses were shut down for extended periods of time at the beginning of the pandemic. Depending on the state in which you live, the period many businesses were shut down was extensive. I am sure that you saw the permanent closure of retail businesses and restaurants in your local community. Big businesses were allowed to operate, but smaller retailers were closed along with many service businesses. The column cites that home values went up during the period. People had fewer opportunities to spend money in the absence of concerts, shows or amusement parks; less eating out; travel, etc.; so, they… Read More